Props to new federal Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for lifting the Obama-era federal guidelines allowing transgender students to use school restrooms and locker rooms reflecting their gender identities, not the gender listed on their birth certificates. DeVos correctly stated that this divisive issue is best solved at the state and local levels. # # #Speaking of schools, did you read about the anti-Semitic preschool teacher in Arlington, Texas, who sent a tweet to an apparently devoted college student about to take a trip to the Mideast? The tweet by Children’s Courtyard teacher Nancy Salem urged the student to “kiss the Palestine ground for me and kill some jews!” School officials subsequently fired Salem. Federal officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement ought to take it a step further and deport Salem to the Gaza Strip. # # #You know social media have gone far enough, and that public education has fallen miles short, when you see news telecasts of loud and overbearing protesters disrupting these so-called town hall meetings at which elected officials are trying to connect with their constituents. Too many of these demonstrators don’t even know what they’re protesting, let alone why they’re raising such a ruckus. # # #Along those same lines, it should surprise no one that U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, 78, a very liberal California Democrat, has called the members of the new Trump Cabinet “a bunch of scumbags.” Backatcha, Maxine: It takes one to know one. “They’re all organized around making money,” Waters told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. Well, OK. So? It takes money to make money. It takes money to create jobs. It takes money to sustain a robust economy. Waters surely understands that. Her net worth reportedly is somewhere north of $964,000. Moreover, Waters is married to Sid Williams, who was a football linebacker for five years in the NFL, became a business developer and served four years under Bill Clinton as ambassador to the Bahamas. Waters and her spouse own property in Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Kern County and in the nation’s capital. Her rsidence in the Windsor Square neighborhood of Los Angeles is valued at $1 million. So, what’s your scumbag point, Maxine? # # #Using powerful telescopes, NASA scientists have discovered a solar system containing at least seven Earth-like planets, three of which hold promise of being able to support human life. The planets surround a young, sun-like star dubbed TRAPPIST-1 that has the potential to exist for another 10-trillion years, according to a scientist with the Leiden Observatory in The Netherlands. Only problem is: The TRAPPIST-1 solar system is about 40 light years away. We humans would have to travel a minimum 11.2 billion miles to reach these planets. That would be like traveling to the sun and back 60 times. Even if we could double the speed of the Cassini probe speeding toward Saturn at 12,400 mph, a space crew launched toward the TRAPPIST-1 system might cover the distance one way in no less than 40 or 41 years. They’d have to be couples who could spawn children on the way. And with any luck at all, the original crew’s grandchildren might make it back to Earth to tell us about it. # # #People protesting the new Trump immigration policy need to put their heads back on their shoulders. Nobody is trying to deport immigrant doctors completing their internships. Nobody is acting to deport the so-called “Dreamers” – children brought to the U.S. without legal status. Homeland Security is not launching mass roundups to corral and deport illegals. Nobody is rounding up non-citizens who have visas or green cards or who are honestly pursuing their own pathways to U.S. citizenship. The Trump executive order is a temporary ban targeting bad guys without legal status who would come to this nation to do harm, or who already are here and getting away with breaking our laws. # # #Now there’s proof that Nancy Pelosi, outspoken and ill-informed minority leader representing California in the U.S. House, could be losing her mind. You be the judge. (And remember: The liberal activists who heard her discombobulated speech still gave her a standing ovation.)http://www.theamericanmirror.com/pelosi-breakdown-repeats-words-tells-audience-clap-kasich-gov-illinois/ # # #In the wake of the political cesspool they called the Grammy Awards one recent Sunday night, the producers need to consider renaming the event the Grimeys. (No offense to the popular music store in Nashville.) In fact, all of these “mutual admiration society” awards shows – the Oscars included – need to go the way of the buffalo. We want to be entertained by entertainers, not preached at by political hacks wearing celebrity clothing who believe they have a captive audience. # # #What’s love got to do with it? Apparently Pakistan has answered singer/celebrity Tina Turner’s hit question. The Pakistani high court has officially banned Valentine’s Day. Talk about a buzz kill. Critics there ought to be playing the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” on loudspeakers all day next Feb. 14. # # #Apparently Disney World in Orlando has grown so popular that park officials have resorted to turning away business. It appears to be a matter of limited supply and growing demand. Attendance keeps going up. So are prices. A one-day admission ticket for an adult during “regular hours” will cost $107, while $101 will be charged for each a kid. Is that goofy, or what? Visitors won’t be ducking higher parking prices either. Walt’s legacy is no Mickey Mouse operation. # # #CalExit – the prospect that California wants to secede from the United States – likely will never happen. But such separation has some support. Recent surveys indicate one-third of the Golden State’s population – some 13 million folks — favors independence. The movement has ramped up in the days following the election of President Donald J. Trump. Perhaps CalExit should happen. It would solve numerous problems. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters could go on wearing her dunce cap out of the national limelight. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi would be history, too. Remember her? Among other initiatives, she wants to equalize income through legislation such as the Windfall Retirement Income Tax. Pelosi is the one who votes first, then reads the bill later. Employers in Los Angeles County could continue unfettered as they pay 40 percent of all workers there under the table (cash; no income tax taken out). Police who don’t flee the new, independent state could continue to wrestle with the challenge showing that 95 percent of all homicides in Los Angeles County are being committed by illegal aliens – 300,000 of whom reside in garages. Heck, California leaving the union might turn out to be a blessing. # # #North Korea reportedly has launched an upgraded intermediate-range ballistic missile that’s a “game-changer.” It burns solid fuel to make the missile more stable, and it is more difficult to detect and destroy before it is launched because it is transported on a mobile flatbed launcher – similar to what the Russians do. Surely the U.S. Navy is poised in international waters to change North Korea’s game by shooting down such a missile if it ever flies out of North Korea’s territorial boundaries. Make it so, No. 1.